Posted on 05/06/2004 11:15:22 AM PDT by Archangelsk
Ask PR about that ;-)
Sounds like he nailed it. Someone was treating this as union/management "business as usual" and the procedure that the top manager came up with -- have everybody put his recollections on tape while they were still as fresh as possible -- is a good one. Human memory is poor evidence, and with each passing minute and hour it gets poorer.
Unfortunately, because that procedure deviated from FAA SOP, the QA manager went into CYA mode. This is normal MO for the line trollers, who often feel that management is "the enemy" and "out to get them." Everybody talks the safety talk but when something happens, the bureaucracy as always responds by trying to cover favoured arses and lop off disfavoured heads....
The QA Manager was too simple to see that this was not a normal "deal" (as the trollers call a loss-of-separation incident or procedural violation) or mishap investigation.
I don't ascribe to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by bungling -- especially when dealing with the Friendly Aviation Agency or any other element of USG. This will no doubt become grist for the gubmint-haters, the Jack Cashills out there. But there's no substance here -- a jackass deleted a primary source record, dumb, and left us with another primary source record from the same people. I believe that the tape would have superior evidentiary value to the written statements, but as other posters here have pointed out, we are not talking about the data tapes, or the audio tapes of the comm frequencies or inter-controller phone network, all of which still exist. We are talking about a contemporaneous "oral history" sort of tape. The controllers as far as I know are all still alive and available to investigators.
The QA manager should have his pee-pee whacked for being too stupid to recognise that a four-plane hijacking and suicidal attack on American cities justified a violation of a bureaucratic rule. However, stupidity does not violate any FAA regulation of which I am aware.
As far as not releasing their names, heck, some of the cranks pushing these conspiracy theories are convicted felons -- would you want them creeping through your begonias and peering in your bedroom window? If the prosecutor had found the QA manager's actions to be criminal, not just stupid, then we would know his name. (And the reason we know the names of many of the Abu Ghraib miscreants is that a classified document leaked). But it was actually the overall center manager who violated FAA regs/policy for ordering the interviews in the first place. (IMHO that was an inspired act and he should be commended for it, it showed considerable nerve for a bureaucratic manager to do that, even if it ultimately was fruitless).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
The thought process on our side is sometimes underwhelming!
That means the FAA guy is lieing through his teeth. Time to get Congress on his case and find out who the people were on the tape, who the so-called "quality assurance" guy was, and then demand to know their current salary!
As a former army air defense officer [Nike-Hercules], I consider that accomplishment a miracle.
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